Philippe Starck and Ian Schrager: Reinventing the American Hotel will be presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Wednesday, November 12, 1997, at 6:00 p.m. in the Van Pelt Auditorium. Sponsored by COLLAB, a group of design professionals who support the Museum's 20th-century design collection, the evening will feature Ian Schrager discussing his hotels as well as his collaboration with French architect-designer Philippe Starck. Schrager, the impressario extraordinaire who created Studio 54 and set the standard for New York nightlife in the 1970s, and Starck, the self-styled "rock star of architecture," have together transformed the hotel industry in the U.S. from hospitality to entertainment. Starck and Schrager will share COLLAB's 1997 Design Excellence Award.

Tickets to the program and award presentation are $5 for adults, and $3 for students (after Museum admission), and may be purchased at the Museum box office or by calling (215) 235-SHOW. Seating is limited; children under 12 are not permitted in the auditorium.

Starck (born Paris, 1949), whose approach to modernism balanced with whimsy sometimes enters the realm of the surreal, was given great liberty in designing everything from the grand sweep of the lobby to individual bathroom fixtures for such Schrager hotels as the Paramount and Royalton in New York, the Delano in Miami, and the Mondrian in Los Angeles.

Philippe Starck's designs have ranged from a toothbrush to a motorcycle to the largest waste disposal center in Europe. An installation providing a sampling of the wit and individuality found in his objects entitled Philippe Starck Designs will be mounted in collaboration with the lecture, opening on November 12, 1997 and remaining on view until March 1, 1998. On view will be furniture and household objects such as utensils, which Starck has called "micro-sculptures which enrich the kitchen." The exhibition will be installed in Galleries 170 and 171 on the Museum's first floor.

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